Crossroads
by thermodynamic
Summary: Turns out abandoning 'live by the gun, die by the gun' is harder than you'd think.


So... I never actually meant to post this, I had a lot of self-indulgent scenes written that didn't really join together, but I've been interested in writing future stuff for a while and this is what came out. Let me know what you guys think :)

* * *

_February 1971_

We're curled up in bed, and Gabi puts her head on my shoulder before she drops the bombshell. If she were capable of it, I'd call it a pretty good piece of manipulation. "I think I should get a job."

At first, I laugh, assume she's joking around. "You been reading up on women's lib? Don't tell me you wanna burn your bra now, too."

Look, I want to consider myself a reasonable, progressive kind of guy, not a damn caveman. Some of that feminist stuff, like broads being able to get their own bank accounts and file for divorce and everything, that makes a lot of sense. But a married woman, with a _baby_, having a job? That's one ain't-shit husband right there. Jesus, I never even had a stepdaddy that bad, and my mama stayed with Ed so long, they're common law married.

"We need the money, you can't deny that much at this point," she says matter-of-factly, plays with a tassel at the end of our blanket. "My sister said she'll watch Elena, she ain't boutta charge family—"

I groan, cut her off before she can finish the sentence. "Honey, you know I love Ximena, but I wouldn't trust her to watch my goldfish." She and Curly ran around together for a few months, which already makes me question her judgement, not that much else about her fills me with confidence in her ability to look after a baby. According to her daddy, she's doing all right at TU, by which he means going to slightly classier sorority parties on her way to her MRS degree— Old Man Lopez never made any secret of why he invested in sending her there.

"This ain't the West side, a lot of women have to work to make ends meet. I was doin' secretary stuff at Our Lady of Grace, not that long ago... before the baby. Maybe I could ask about gettin' the job back—"

I didn't even like her doing that. "What put this in your head, huh? You don't think I can take of us by myself, _querida_?"

She bites her lower lip, before she speaks again. "I have a high school diploma," she says, "I graduated. I could get paid—"

"Less," I say, though I don't know if it's more for the sake of my pride or because I'm right. "You can pay a woman whatever you want, y'all don't make a fuss about it."

"It's still more... white-collar." She's using that delicate tone of voice again, she doesn't want to point out that I haul around boards and sheetrock for... less an hour than I'm willing to admit. "They didn't pay me half-bad, when I was over there, the other girls knew my mama— it'd take a load off you. We can't afford a housewife."

"_You're_ still sick," I say, more high-pitched than I wanted. Splay my hand out over her stomach; she stiffens. "You almost _died_, Jesus—" I swallow hard, try to get a grip before I start recounting a memory we'd both rather forget. "I worry 'bout you," I admit though it's hard, she's my wife, I have to admit things like that to her. "Just focus on gettin' better and lemme handle the rest, okay?"

"I worry about you too, _mi vida_," she says with big, wide eyes, which is the point where she's really got me good. "Your back's fixin' to break, if you keep working these shifts. Twelve hours a day on a construction site?" She pulls away from me, cups my face in her hands. "This can't go on forever."

Fourteen, some days, but she doesn't need to know about that. I scratch the back of my neck, she's not going to like what I say next. Try to keep it casual. "I was thinkin' of goin' on an oil rig, maybe."

"No." Her response is immediate and sharp, her grip on my upper arm tightens and she digs her nails in hard enough to sting. "What, you left slingin' just to run straight back into danger?"

"It's good money," I say, though the more I think about it the less I like it. I like my other options quite a bit less, though, which include enlisting in the army, selling a kidney, and male prostitution wherever Soda Curtis sucks dick for smack. "It wouldn't be forever, neither. Just 'til the hospital bills get paid off."

"If you'd let me see them—"

"It ain't nothin', I wouldn't lie to you, baby," I say, though I'm lying through my fucking teeth and wish I had some shame about it. The bills are— well. Every time I look at them and want to pull out my lighter, I imagine paying for a double funeral instead, and that cheers me right up. "Nothin' I can't handle."

She slackens, lies close to me again; I breathe in the clean, sweet smell of her shampoo and mentally smack myself for my ingratitude, like I have a care in the world compared to what I could be dealing with right now. She speaks again soon enough, though, broaches the last taboo— or close to it. "My daddy—"

"I'm not gonna ask your daddy for money," I say, and that's with genuine finality. Her old man's hated me since I was a cocky eighteen-year-old kid, dropping her off on his porch hours past her curfew with hickeys on her neck. Back in the day, I used to think he was a real uptight asshole, delighted in the knowledge that I was debauching his eldest daughter, the one he relied on for everything, giving her a taste of the wild side. Now that I have a daughter of my own? Jesus fucking Christ, some ain't-shit _cholo_ with a scar across half his face gets within a mile of my property, I'm grabbing my shotgun and chasing him off.

Still not enough to make me apologize, though. Or take a cent from him.

I'm a high school dropout with two felonies under my belt. The fact that I earn what I do at all is mostly because Darry Curtis, channeling his daddy, took a chance on me. But I'll manage, dammit, I always do. I don't need anyone giving me handouts. So I raise an eyebrow at her, real slow, and smirk. "You really wanna be talkin' about this in our marriage bed? Ain't there better things we could be doin' in here?"

It's a pretty desperate gambit, but it works, because she smirks back at me and falls into my arms. And for at least the next hour, God, the last thing I want to be thinking about is my fucking _bills_.

* * *

We get as far as one of my breasts in his mouth before Elena starts crying, and I groan, she couldn't have picked a better moment. "I gotta go feed her or change her or somethin', don't I?"

"Remind me why we had a kid again," he says teasingly, but a flash of numbness courses through me all the same; he licks a broad, flat stripe across my nipple, and I shudder, think about just leaving her to it. "It was easier sneakin' around my mama's house, I swear."

Reluctantly, I pull away from him, put my shirt back on and go in search of my daughter— she's in the room next to us, what I like to call a nursery, but it's really a refurbished closet. "Hey, little lady," I say in a sing-song as I take a sniff— it's a diaper— "your daddy thinks you got real bad timing. What do you have to say about that?" And I keep chattering aimlessly, distract myself from her, until she's clean.

Tim's passed out cold once I'm back, and while I'm tempted for a second to wake him up, I don't, just kiss the border between his hairline and temple and pull the blanket over him— he works so much already, I'm loath to disturb whatever little rest he can find. I get under the covers myself and lean against the warmth of his body, stare at the lumpy cottage cheese patterns on the ceiling, and face the truth I've been dodging with everything in me. The real reason why I want to get a job, get out of this house for at least a few hours at a time, that has nothing to do with our dire financial straits.

Tim never wanted the baby. And, maybe because of that, I don't know if I love her, either.

I mean, what kind of mother— what kind of _monster_— doesn't fall head over heels in love with her own daughter? I was willing to die for her, though I know Tim would've never made that choice, but now that I'm responsible for keeping her alive, I feel like I can't get up from the weight I'm under. The hospital bills were enormous— the word astronomical is probably more appropriate, though he refuses to let me see them. A few years ago, I would've found it real sweet, that he didn't want me to worry, but now a hot wave of annoyance rises in my stomach every time he deflects; I worry that he doesn't even see me as an adult, just another in a long line of children he's had to take care of, or worse, an adult who can't act like one. Like his mama.

Though it's not like... God, I hate to admit it, but if I didn't romanticize what it'd be like to be the mother to a newborn. I swear I had a Gerber commercial playing in my head for my entire pregnancy, about a woman's most sacred calling, visions of taking a cooing baby out on walks in a stroller and cooking pancakes with her in a highchair, sunlight streaming through the windows. No one warned me how she'd turn out to be a constantly crying, pooping, demanding to be fed _machine_, how the lack of sleep would make me feel like I'd just stepped out of a zombie movie, how I swear I left my own body behind at the hospital and they swapped me with an entirely different one. I remember our blowout fight at the beginning of our marriage, I'd gotten it into my head that it was a sin to keep using condoms; he shot right back at me that he wasn't about to become the _beaming patriarch to a baseball team of kids_, and I could justify it to Jesus however I wanted. Back then, I'd thought he was selling himself short as a potential father, that maybe he needed to spend a little more time talking to Jesus himself. Now, I realize I'm barely qualified to parent one of his children, much less a whole busload of them.

Maybe it's because I don't have a mother anymore, something Jasmine and I have in common. We're trying to stumble towards being mothers ourselves, without an ounce of guidance, and making a fine mess of it in the process.

I want to shake myself, keep remembering how spoiled and ungrateful I sound— Tim's a good man, though he refuses to consider himself one, he would never hit me or drink up all the rent checks or do a million other things that are all-too-common in this neighborhood. I have a perfectly healthy daughter, which I should be getting on my knees and praying for more than I am right now. I don't know what I wanted, in retrospect. A baby to put the ribbon on top of the happy ending, something out of a romance novel? Notorious rake Tim Shepard transformed into a loving husband _and_ father? I feel like a whiny kid, begging for candy for dinner, told by her parent that it'd give her a stomachache. Except now the consequences are so much worse than I could've imagined— me, lying almost dead, though I don't remember half of it, a daughter neither of us was prepared for, a suddenly distant marriage. And none of it can be taken back.

I snake a hand down, past the waistband of my pajama pants, touch the C-section scar splitting my pelvis all the way across. Almost immediately, I withdraw it, it's like my eyes and ears have filled with static and the world's narrowed into a pinhole, my breath not coming into my lungs. I can't think about it, I can't, I can't, I refuse to. It's something I just don't have the capacity to acknowledge, much less process.

"I want to love you," I whisper brokenly, towards her, "like you deserve"; no one can hear me, except maybe God. "I'll keep workin' at it."

* * *

I rub the sleep out of my eyes with a fist, try to focus my gaze on Curly standing on my porch. He looks good, these days, toting a new leather jacket that probably costs more than I make in a week; he still slicks his hair back with grease, though the trend's dying out. "Whatchu doin' here?" I say blearily, stifle a yawn. Two hours before I have to go to work, I remember on autopilot. "This better be important."

He gives me a tight smile. "Listen, can y'all watch Mike this weekend? Luis is havin' a big party, he wants us to be there, he'd be a lil' out of place."

Between you and me, he should've just named that kid Draft Dodger Shepard, because I'm convinced that's the only reason he and Jasmine popped him out— Luis told them to get on making one. He, Alberto, and I were all long since out of the running in the lottery, as felons, but Curly had somehow managed to avoid getting one of those bad boys on his record... I'm sure Luis probably offered him the choice between that and just shooting him in the kneecap. He's real generous like that.

I'm being too harsh— Curly genuinely loves that kid, but he loves him in the same way you love a puppy, something you can easily drop off and force to accommodate your lifestyle. I don't know how either one of them is going to manage when he gets larger than a loaf of bread, God forbid a mind of his own. Oh, wait, I do know. That's going to be Uncle Tim's problem.

I smile even more tightly in response. "You didn't come down here at five in the morning to ask that, Curls. You could've called at a normal hour, on the phone." He brandishes an envelope from his pocket, gives up the ghost, and I snatch it from between his fingers. "The fuck is this?"

"Money," he says. "You deserve somethin', you look after Michael often enough, I know y'all got trouble payin' bills—"

I offer him a stare that could turn hell cold. "When I need my kid brother's help to pay my bills, I'll drop you a line, how 'bout it?"

"Quit bein' so goddamn stubborn, it ain't just about you now—"

"So you think I can't take care of my own family," I start, then the lightbulb finally ignites over my head. "This ain't your money."

"'Course it is," he tries to bullshit me, but I'm the only person he never learned how to lie to or manipulate. I guess I just know him too well. "Who else's would it be?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe _our uncle's_?" I cuss under my breath, ball my fists up; he might as well have written 'I love you, from Tío Luis' for all the subtlety this operation has. "I can't believe he's sendin' you to do his dirty work for him. For all that he is, I never pegged him as a coward."

I can't believe he's contacting me after so long, I haven't seen him in close to two years now; my official punishment, issued by the upper echelon of Ramirez themselves, is shunning. I long-suspected he'd been secretly hoping for this, getting me out of the way so that Curly could inherit the not-so-metaphorical throne. When he went looking for adventure back in _la patria_, it was me he took along with him, the one he needed to keep an eye on, while Curly held down the fort at home— the one who never stopped running his mouth, questioning him. As he'd beaten into me at age thirteen, the liability.

"All right, _fine_," he snaps, "yeah, it's from Luis, you happy now?" He exhales then, tries to regain his composure. "He misses you, Tim— don't look at me like that, he does." He waves his hand for emphasis. "You was always the brains of the operation... and we're doin' real good now, he got money to spare."

Rumor has it that Luis is strutting around the _barrio_ with both a fur coat and a capuchin monkey, and I believe it. If there's anything he has in spades, it's the fucking audacity. I sigh, drag a hand through my hair and get caught in the tangles. Curly, he wants to be everyone's friend, that's his biggest problem— play family peacekeeper. If he's not begging me to reconcile with Ma and Ed, 'she misses you', 'he's been goin' to AA again', it's roping me back into speaking terms with our uncles. I don't know when he's going to realize that some bridges need to be burnt to the ground.

"I ain't never goin' back, so you take this right over to Luis and tell him to shove it up his ass, I don't need his blood money for anything." I look him straight in the eye. "I want you out of all this shit, too. You know that."

"Think we _both_ know I'm not goin' anywhere."

"I can put in a good word for you, where I work, say you're my brother and you need a break." I'm not too proud to beg, not when it comes to him. "It's rough at first, I'm not gonna lie, but you won't be dodging bullets anymore—"

"I mean in life." The bitterness in his voice startles me. "C'mon, Tim, everyone's always said you're brilliant, you got all them lectures at school 'bout 'livin' up to your potential'... even _Ed_ was pissed you dropped out. What'd Ponyboy call me in that theme of his, _your average downtown hood? Not real bright?_" I don't have a problem with any of the Curtises, we're supposed to be in-laws and all, but I'd kill to put my fist through that kid's nose right now. "I've got a pretty good deal here, I make good money. What else am I gonna do, dodge landmines in Nam? At least with tíos, I can keep Jasmine comfortable, I finally bought her a decent-sized rock."

I swallow hard, look away from him before I say it. "I'm afraid you're gonna do somethin' you can't take back, _mano_. That you'll never be able to get out after that."

I want to tell him that no matter what he's tried to convince himself of, he's no cold-blooded killer. That I'm also afraid I'm going to end up attending his funeral the way Luis and Alberto ended up at their brother's, or that I'll have to visit him behind a pane of glass in Big Mac for the rest of his life, or that over the years he'll morph into someone I can no longer recognize just to survive. I want to tell him how much I love him.

But we're Shepards, and none of it comes out, and Curly just gives me a wry grin. "Awh, don't worry 'bout me, Tim," he says, claps me on the shoulder. "I liked that other line he wrote. That I can take anything."


End file.
